


trust the process

by Tea_For_One_Please



Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, M/M, One Shot, POV Miss Jenn, POV Third Person, idk what to tag for this tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:34:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26938990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tea_For_One_Please/pseuds/Tea_For_One_Please
Summary: Miss Jenn has always been observant; she prides herself on it. However, the opening night of 'High School Musical' throws her for some curveballs even she didn't see coming.ORHow Miss Jenn Found Out About The Couples
Relationships: Big Red/Ashlyn Caswell, Ricky Bowen/Nini Salazar-Roberts, Seb Matthew-Smith/Carlos Rodriguez
Comments: 9
Kudos: 70





	trust the process

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this MONTHS ago and had ~100 words left to write, but then completely forgot about it! I quite like it, so I hope you do too.

The production explicably grinds to a halt once again, and Miss Jenn pinches the bridge of her nose in exasperation. She feels for the poor musicians in the pit, who have practised their songs to perfection, and are now having to accommodate for the… well, eccentricities of her somewhat temperamental cast. EJ and Nini fall silent, and she’s not even looking at him. Considering this is ‘Breaking Free’ – which is supposed to be the second act’s big love song – that’s kind of a problem.

She follows Nini’s gaze, and her eyes rest on Ricky and Gina, who are loitering by the gymnasium door. _There he is_ , she thinks. And now, of course, EJ’s jogging offstage, and Nini’s singing to Ricky, as if this production wasn’t confusing enough already.

Miss Jenn sighs as she watches Nini seize Ricky’s hand and pull him back onstage. The sigh is borne partly of frustration, but it’s affectionate, too. She loves these kids – but all the same, she can’t deny that as first nights go, this one’s been kind of a hot mess. Since this morning, this is the fourth casting change. Fourth? Fifth? She’s lost count. And the audio-visuals were a travesty for the first ten minutes of the show. And Ricky _quite_ _literally_ dropped the ball in the final scene of the first act. And she’s struggling to imagine a less convincing Chad than Carlos, bless his heart.

It hasn’t all been a disaster, of course – Gina’s return warmed Miss Jenn’s heart, and Seb has stolen almost every scene he’s been in. And now, as Ricky (in plain clothes, for _God’s_ sake) and Nini take centre stage and belt the chorus from ‘Breaking Free’, she can’t help but smile as she sees them dancing together.

She knew from the start, of course – what she lacks in teaching qualifications, she makes up for in a keen eye which misses absolutely nothing. This, combined with her uncanny ability to make connections between what she sees and what might be, is what led her to conclude that Ricky and Nini would be back together by closing night at the latest.

 _That_ , she reflects contentedly, _is at least part of the reason she cast them._ She tries to practise what she preaches, and she really _does_ trust her process. That’s not to say, of course, that _High School Musical_ has been a ruse to rekindle Ricky and Nini’s relationship. That would be ridiculous. After all, she didn’t know them until the auditions, and prior to Carlos’ explanations, she was unaware of their history.

No, she is merely an opportunist, and it is for this reason that she noticed that it was primarily Nini to whom he was singing at his frankly peculiar audition. She sensed they had chemistry, an intuition which only grew as the rehearsal process advanced.

As she watches the two of them lower their voices for the concluding lines of ‘Breaking Free’, she can’t help feeling a sense of smug satisfaction as she remembers everyone’s protests to her casting choices, from her extremely beleaguered choreographer to Nini and Ricky themselves. Now though, he pulls her into a tight hug, and Miss Jenn suspects that this is the actors ‘leaking out’ into their characters, as it were. And as they break apart, Nini smiles at him, a smile which Miss Jenn has never seen in rehearsals over the last three months.

Miss Jenn sees everything. Misses nothing. She prides herself on it.

Therefore, when she peeps into the gym an hour or so later, she is completely and utterly astonished. Big Red, her earnest, well-meaning assistant stage manager – quietly cheerful and not especially-self-confident – is standing centre stage, in the middle of a tap routine that would turn Fred Astaire green with envy.

Obscured by the shadows, she folds her arms, leans against the wall and watches, fascinated, as this red-haired enigma twists and leaps around the stage. His shoes beat out a samba, kicking up the settled dust which catches the bright blue beam of the stage lights. _This boy is seriously gifted,_ she thinks to herself in wonder. _A prodigy, even._

As Big Red finishes, landing gracefully and bending his knees in a shallow _plié_ and throwing his arms out, the confetti cannons blast again. She lets out a small scream, which is thankfully muffled by the sound of the cannons.

As she recovers, she has to mentally restrain herself from applauding. She hears a thud, and looks around her in alarm, thinking she’s dropped her clipboard. What she sees instead, though, is Ashlyn marching across the stage and pulling Big Red into a kiss more passionate than anything in the local production of _West Side Story_ she starred in during the year after high school. Okay, the production she auditioned for. Same thing.

 _Focus_ , she thinks, shaking herself out of her reverie and resuming gaping at the scene in front of her. She’s starting to wonder, with some dismay, if her powers of observation are not as impressive as she likes to believe.

She absolutely did not see this coming.

She thought she had the measure of them both. She always considered Ashlyn to be friendly and outspoken, but also independent: Miss Jenn’s certainly never seen her hanging around Big Red before. She vaguely remembers seeing Ashlyn loitering in the light booth at the Elray theatre, but admittedly she was too wrapped up in her own problems to think anything of it at the time.

As for Big Red… well, he always seemed to follow Ricky around. He has a gift at picking up skills quickly, and he’s rather a tech whiz, judging his prowess at Mr Mazzara’s AV desk this evening. And a remarkably proficient tap-dancer, apparently.

She watches as their kiss breaks apart, and Ashlyn quietly says something which makes Big Red laugh. He clicks his toes on the floor, prompting a sweet smile from her, before offering her his hand, which she takes. On their way out, presumably off to their cast party, Ashlyn scoops up the enormous bouquet of flowers from the gym floor, and they disappear together.

Miss Jenn smiles as she watches them leave. She knows they’re not really her kids, but she still thinks of them that way, and loves them as though they were her own. Although, she reflects, that would make it a little weird that so many of them are starting to date each other. _Let’s forget that particular analogy_ , she thinks, turning tail and walking out of the gym.

Of the night’s revelations, what she sees on her way back to her office surprises her the least. She hears a hushed giggle from the other end of the corridor, and ducks slickly behind a locker. She peers around the corner to see Carlos tug Seb into the hallway by the lapel of the pink jacket he’s clearly not planning to give back to the costumes department. She makes a mental note to ask for it back at some point.

Carlos pulls Seb to him and kisses him, all smiles, and Seb presses their foreheads together when they pull apart. He makes some remark about risking being seen, which Carlos brushes off with a comment to the effect that Ricky and Nini effectively just rekindled their relationship in front of two hundred people. Seb grins and shrugs, before pressing his lips against Carlos’ again.

This was always going to happen, really. She sensed it, even earlier than Ricky and Nini: at the very first audition reads, when Carlos hastily interjected and suggested that Seb read Sharpay’s lines instead of Ryan’s. She saw the way Seb smiled at him, and the look of secret understanding that passed between the two boys. So she smiled. And she wondered.

She knew that they were going to homecoming together: when she asked Carlos if he was going, he responded casually, without looking up from his phone, that he and Seb were thinking of going along. She probed no further, but couldn’t ignore the way the corners of his lips twitched upwards when he said Seb’s name. Then, at the dreaded meeting of the school board, after she thanked Carlos, he ran straight into Seb’s arms and hugged him tightly.

Now, Miss Jenn turns her eyes away: after all, she has no desire to spy on them in moments when they think they’re alone – even if it does seem to happen that way quite often. She’s surprised to find that her eyes are slightly damp, and she blinks rapidly, not wanting to smudge her mascara.

She’s obviously happy for them both: she likes Seb very much (even though he does occasionally demonstrate as much common sense as her clipboard), but she’s particularly pleased for Carlos, though, who she knows was so lonely before the show. He didn’t outright tell her, of course, but she notices these things. She’s noticed how surprised he looks whenever someone talks to him about anything other than choreography, and how flustered he gets whenever anyone pays him a compliment. She’s so glad he’s found a place where he can be himself – and, apparently, somebody with whom he can be himself.

She returns to her office feeling a deep sense of satisfaction. She’ll be the first to admit that this was not exactly how she’d envisaged the first night of _High School Musical_ – performed in the school’s gymnasium, with an average of two different actors playing each character. In spite of everything, though, she lowers herself into her desk chair with a sigh of pure contentment, thinking of her bizarre little family. All things considered, she reflects, it’s been the best opening night of her life.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading if you got this far! Do let me know your thoughts, either on here or on my Tumblr @tea-for-one-please)!


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